Episode Notes:

The government of Sierra Leone has announced that a series of armed attacks that took place last weekend represented a failed coup attempt. The government has subsequently arrested 13 military officers and one civilian who they claim were leaders of the effort.

Joining us to tell us what happened is Ebenezer Obadare, the Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign relations.

[:44] Latest developments

[ 1:40] Public perceptions

[3:16] Political background

[4:50] Regional context

[8:30] International dimension

Episode Transcript

Nicholas Danforth: My name is Nicholas Danforth, and I'm an editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to The Warcast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know, now.

The government of Sierra Leone has announced that a series of armed attacks that took place last weekend represented a failed coup attempt. The government has subsequently arrested 13 military officers and one civilian who they claim were leaders of the effort.

Joining us to tell us what happened is Ebenezer Obadare, the Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome back to The Warcast.

Ebenezer Obadare: Thank you for having me.

Nicholas Danforth: To start out, tell us what's happened over the past week.

Ebenezer Obadare: Just as you just said, I think we have to take the government's word for it that a bunch of soldiers attacked a series of government institutions and military installations, and they've been arrested.

And I said we have to take the government's word for it because remember, this is the second time since the elections that brought Julius Maada Bio to power in June that we're having a report like this.

Back in August, there were similar reports that a group of soldiers had been captured and that they were in the process of attempting a military takeover of the government. We don't know whether that is true or not, but having said that, perhaps this speaks to an underlying disgruntlement with the government, something that's been brewing under the surface since elections were concluded and President Maada Bio came to power in June this year.

Nicholas Danforth: I suppose the next question would be are people in Sierra Leone or members of the opposition, are folks in the military taking the government's word for this?

Ebenezer Obadare: I think if you ask most people, they will think that maybe it is true that there's something out there. The fact that it's the government that is claiming that there are people out there claiming to overthrow it is a problem. Right? So it's not as if people woke up in the morning and they heard the usual gunshots, they heard something on the radio. It's government saying, "Listen, some people don't like us. They want to knock us off. Take our word for it."

I'm not necessarily suggesting that there has been no attempt, but it's significant that on both occasions, back in August and last week, it's the government that has been saying, "We have people out there who are the enemies of the state, who are trying to knock us off." Whether that is true or not I think is the question here.

Nicholas Danforth: And can we say anything more specific about who was arrested, who was held responsible after the attempt in August and this week as well?

Ebenezer Obadare: As far as we know, just a group of soldiers. And this is why I'm saying that we should probably take this with a pinch of salt, which is not to say that there isn't any underlying antagonism towards the government. But as far as we know, the people who have been rounded up are people who have been branded by the states as enemies of the state and who are intent, apparently, on taking over power.

Nicholas Danforth: To take a step back then, give us a little bit of an overview of the contours of politics in Sierra Leone since what were, if I read correctly, contested elections last spring.

Ebenezer Obadare: Thank you. This is the all-important context. So back in June, President Maada Bio won a second five-year term, and I think he won 56% of the votes, meaning that the opposition or Progressive Congress could not challenge him to a runoff, but he just barely scraped through.

The most significant part of that election was the disappointment expressed by international observers, The United States, The European Union, local observers, the All Progressive Congress in Sierra Leone, and local domestic civil society.

I think there was a broad agreement that things could have been done better, that the landscape was rigged against the opposition, and that there was nothing that the opposition could have done to have made it take the election into a runoff.

So since then, I think that you can sort of see that people have not been happy with the government. Even though President Maada Bio was sworn in, everybody has sort of moved on and all of that. But there's a sense that just like the election before it and the one before that, that the country appears to have been regressing and that more needs to be done to make sure that people's trust in the integrity of election in the country is restored.

Nicholas Danforth: And then tell us more about some of the substantive political or economic or otherwise criticisms, disagreements, discontent with the government now.

Ebenezer Obadare: So it's a great question, because this is not just limited to Sierra Leone, right? So if you think about the military takeovers in neighboring, in Guinea, in Mali, in Burkina Faso, in Chad, in other places, even in Gabon, which is not in West Africa, which is in Central Africa, the quite legitimate complaint has been that government power has not been mobilized for public good, that there's plenty of corruption.

As they say in Sierra Leone, I think they say it, I think it's, "Same taxi, different driver," that kind of thing. Basically, a sense of, "Well, we've had different regimes, but we've had the same kind of operations."

And there's an underlying frustration among young people that something is just not right, that the government is not working for them. So this is not just Sierra Leone, it's about all the neighboring West African countries where the military has come into power on the back of similar grievances.

Nicholas Danforth: Obviously, as you know, this has been discussed, this coup attempt has been discussed in the context of other successful coup attempts in West Africa. To the extent that is a fair or inevitable comparison, talk us through or you think the reasons that we've seen successful coups other places and not in Sierra Leone. Does this augur for an eventual successful coup in Sierra Leone or are the comparisons simply not entirely accurate?

Ebenezer Obadare: I don't like to predict, but I will keep an eye on Sierra Leone. And I will keep an eye on Sierra Leone not because I think something might happen in the foreseeable future, but because it's in West Africa and it's a country where soldiers are sensitive to what has happened in other parts of West Africa. If these, the claims of these last two attempts, are true, I wouldn't be surprised to see another attempt to take over power in the foreseeable future.

The thing is this, there are two elements at work here that we need to take into consideration. The first one that I mentioned earlier is the overall social economy context and the legitimate grievances that people are expressing about democracy not working for them.

So if you think about last week of the Nigerian statement, former Nigerian president conveyed a group of scholars and politicians in the country, and they all came out with a statement saying, "Liberal democracy does not work for us. We want a return to Afro democracy." I think the insistence on Afro democracy is dubious, but the legitimate grievance that liberal democracy appears not to be working, I think, should be appreciated. That's one.

And the other thing is this, coups beget more coups. The fact that you've seen successful military takeovers in Mali, in Nigeria, in Burkina Faso, and gaining, means that for the soldiers in Sierra Leone, the temptation has to be there for them to do what their colleagues in these other West African countries have done successfully.

Nicholas Danforth: Finally, very briefly tell us about the international dimension here. Is there an international dimension? If so, how is that playing out?

Ebenezer Obadare: It's interesting that you mentioned that. If there's international dimension to this one, this one in Sierra Leone is actually a positive one. And this is what I mean.

Earlier elections in Sierra Leone had this very interesting component that the EU, the United Nations, different western powers, various transnational organizations were really interested in helping the country to get back on its feet after a horrific civil war. So there was a lot of material and emotional investment in that.

I think that most Sierra Leoneans right now will appreciate further material support for their elections. And I think that if you're coming from the perspective of the European Union and western countries, more resources need to be targeted at future elections in Sierra Leone, such that trust is rebuilt and people do not lose faith in democracy itself.

Nicholas Danforth: Thank you for joining us on The Warcast.

Ebenezer Obadare: Thank you for having me.